Shanna Toback said:

Hannah Gibbs said:

Matthew Chappell said:

Thanks everyone.  I really appreciate the support.  So far, Calarts is the only art school that keeps rejecting me and I'm stubborn enough to keep re-applying.  :) 

I know I have other options, but they're very limited if I want to continue to study stop motion. 

 

 

 Matthew, have you ever looked into the Kansas City Art Institute Animation Program? They focus on all aspects of animation. I've seen some great work from there.

 

In 2009/2010 I believe a stop motion film from KCAI students won a student Academy Award. It was called "Dried Up" 

 

Just search youtube 'Dried Up KCAI' if you are interested :D

I loved it!

  Good luck!

 

 

Actually I am currently a student at this school getting a BFA in animation.  The first year we focus on 2D, the second year it's 3D and then for senior year you can do anything and many students do a stop motion film.  Our head, Doug Hudson, does a lot of independent studies with students on making their own stop motion film.  Kansas City is growing in the animation world and with the Student Academy Award win that the stop motion "Dried Up" received, it opened a lot of great opportunities for stop motion.  We have a stop motion studio in our school and a huge 10foot by 10foot green screen room, which you can rent for a few hours or a day if needed.  Next year we are getting more rooms and we are turning the stop motion room into a pretty large studio.  I know it's not CalArts EA program, but it has a lot of great support from the faculty and it is a small school so it there is a small student to teacher ratio. I think it’s about 6-8 students for 1 teacher.  Plus Kansas City is all about the arts and people are so friendly.  Plus KCAI is not the chain of Ai Tech schools.  It’s like CalArts and the Chicago Institute, it is its own, private 4 year school. So you actually get a BFA not a tech degree.   

Here is the URL to the film "Dried Up"- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdCUvFXQzSk
And this is Eva who is a current Senior and is working on a stop motion-  http://nauticalapsarafilm.wordpress.com/

I do want to go to CalArts for my MFA in EA but for now I'm getting my BFA here because I wanted to have connections mid-way to CA, and I wanted to get off the east coast. 
 

Yeah, KCAI is a great school. (KC native here.) I'm just taking some continuing education figure classes there right now to beef up my portfolio, and some credit classes this summer. :D

I'm pretty sure I've cut Eva's hair before, haha. She had great things to say about the program there. 

Matthew Chappell said:

Thanks everyone.  I really appreciate the support.  So far, Calarts is the only art school that keeps rejecting me and I'm stubborn enough to keep re-applying.  :) 

I know I have other options, but they're very limited if I want to continue to study stop motion. 

 

 

 Matthew, have you ever looked into the Kansas City Art Institute Animation Program? They focus on all aspects of animation. I've seen some great work from there.

 

In 2009/2010 I believe a stop motion film from KCAI students won a student Academy Award. It was called "Dried Up" 

 

Just search youtube 'Dried Up KCAI' if you are interested :D

I loved it!

  Good luck!

 

 

This post was edited by Hannah Gibbs at April 6, 2012 6:18:28 AM PDT

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I'm hoping some classes I take this spring and summer will help prove my work ethic and ambition :)

Thank you! I know Ringling is into Academics. I just had a bad semester of health issues four years back at a Community College. I have four Fs on my transcript. So even though this past year I have will have two semesters of As, my GPA still looks whimpy. They said I can explain my issues on the application for Ringling, but I was wondering if I should just submit my high school transcript instead? I will also have a decent transcript from classes I took at the Kansas City Art Institute for credit. 

 

CalArts is my top choice school. Its good to hear they focus on the portfolio/sketchbook and the artist statement before grades. 

 

P.S. I love this forum. You all are so helpful and supportive! <3

This post was edited by Hannah Gibbs at April 3, 2012 7:39:43 PM PDT

I apologize for all the questions I ask, haha. I'm just trying to do my research. For those accepted, what kind of GPA did you have? Does CalArts focus too much on GPA?